UK’s rogue boss name and shame register still blank after four years
The government has failed to name and shame a single employer four years after pledging to provide an online list of rogue bosses who refuse to pay workers money won at employment tribunal.
In 2018, the government announced they would make the “largest upgrade in a generation to workplace rights”, adding they would deliver “the government’s commitment to build an economy that works for all”.
As part of the announcement, they pledged to name and shame employers who failed to pay employment tribunal awards within a reasonable time on a database called the Employment Tribunal Naming Scheme.
The idea, initially recommended by the Taylor review of modern working practices, was that naming rogue employers would shame them into paying tribunal claimants faster.
A Freedom of Information request (FoI) revealed that after the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) pledge to name and shame employers in 2018, they were notified 3,713 times about bosses failing to pay successful claimants their money. However, they haven’t named a single employer in that time.
The FoI also revealed that, on average, more than 50% of employers failed to pay all or any of the money won by claimants at employment tribunal 28 days after being told to do so.
Leon (not his real name), a 39-year-old programmer from the north-west of England, has been chasing his former employer for six years and still hasn’t been paid in full. Leon is married with three children and worked for a media company, managing their website.
Just before Christmas 2017, the company owed him nearly two months’ wages – £3,000 – but neglected to pay him. “It was so stressful because I needed to pay bills, I needed to buy food. I had to use my credit cards to buy
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